Jack Rakove
@jrakove.bsky.social
Native Cook County Democrat, Cubs fan, and long-time historian of the American Revolution and Constitution
How is it that we are simultaneously living some absurdist science fiction novel based on rogue AI in real time while our civic life as a nominally democratic polity is taking either a dystopian or authoritarian form, where Orwell and 1984 are abetter guide than Publius and The Federalist?
Great cartoon--but if that's Gorsuch in the background, where's the Chief, who was the author of the Trump v. U.S. opinion? And I hope to post my article on Trumped-up Presidential Immunity: A Constitutional Debacle very soon, because it is due out from the Journal of Constitutional Law. Stay tuned.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy@profciara.bsky.social · 2d agoThe fisting a beer 🍻 ⚖️👇🏾
Clinical diagnosis is far above my pay grade (though George Conway seems good at it) but I have long wondered whether Trump is not indeed clinically delusional in his thinking, which may also be true of other authoritarian leaders. Occam's Razor (a personal favorite) would point in that direction.
Holly Brewer@earlymodjustice.bsky.social · 2d ago“Trump’s unusual relationship to the objective world leaves him dangerously unable to pivot, shift gears or change course. It is not that he thinks he can steer around the iceberg, it’s that he doesn’t believe it is there in the first place, even when it is staring him in the face” @jamellebouie.net
Really nice piece, particularly in (1) explaining the issue of standing, where the five conservatives in the White House case are stiffing their archdeacon, Scalia; and (2) in ridiculing the idea that the presidency suffers "irreparable harm" when barred from doing something illegal.
Leah Litman@leahlitman.bsky.social · 3d agoI have a piece in the Atlantic about SCOTUS’s ballroom order - and how the Court has a very wrongheaded and destructive account of the separation of powers www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Just read it and was thinking of reposting it myself. Somehow it makes me happy that I spend most of my waking hours in the 18th century.
Charlie Warzel@cwarzel.bsky.social · 3d agoWrote a big essay w/ @matteowong.bsky.social trying to put a finger on this moment in AI right now. The AI agent hacks, lack of control, the weirdening & slopping of culture. The feeling that the industry is speeding toward something it can’t even decide is good and lecturing that it is inevitable.
Probably Timothy Pickering's best moment, as opposed to his conduct during the "reign of witches" under the Sedition Act of 1798. (Your Trivial Pursuit fact for today).
pdgpa@pdgpa.bsky.social · 5d agoThe Treaty of Canandaigua? Very important event in US history in the early years following the adoption of the Constitution.
I often wonder how later generations will write the history of the U.S. in this period, moving beyond the constitutional issues that preoccupy me. This shameful stuff suggests we'll be compared to Germans in the 1930s. But anti-ICE protests do weigh on the other side. No one protested Kristallnacht.
King Algamemnon@adamrothman.bsky.social · 6d agoThe regime of mass deportation is downstream from mass incarceration. Americans have been densensitized to the extraordinary cruelty and violence of the prison system, so that when migrants are classified as criminals, they too can be brutalized with impunity.
Top 5 Most Embarrassing & Humiliating Capitulations to Trump/MAGA: 5. Klein's Charlie Kirk essay ("he did politics the right way") 4. white-shoe law firms' "deal" with Trump 3. Columbia's "deal" with Trump (my god, this one) 2. Google's hydronyms 1. gleeful attendance of press at WHCA dinner
Good article and a great view of the arcade just outside my office of several decades. But it is important to distinguish free press issues from other forms of behavior that were overtly inimical to university/collegiate environments--e.g. my alma mater (Haverford) was a complete disaster here.
Chris Sprigman@cjsprigman.bsky.social · 7d agoMaybe next a court will rule that some university administration (cough, cough) has also unfairly targeted Israel protestors. Because they have. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/u...
"Escalating Canada feud" seems like a curious editorial choice when one is demonstrating one's innate stupidity. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America, escalating Canada feud
President Donald Trump said he's making the change because “Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly.”
washingtonpost.com
Speaking for Madison, this badly misstates the classic argument best known from Federalist 10 but present in his other writings. "Actively pursue republican virtue" is rather strong language, after all.
A W original@alworiginal.bsky.social · 2w agoThis is true - all the Founders believed that if the people didn’t actively pursue republican virtue -- acting for the common good as opposed to selfish interests— the United States would fail. Conservatism & libertarianism over decades have sought to destroy the idea of the public good.
Rolling Boulders Kingston Quintuplets and on the Canadian side Ian and Sylvia and Bib and Carol and Ted and Alice (dating myself as a 60s guy, obviously)
Edward Swaine@edswaine.bsky.social · 2w agoMake a band bigger: Substantial Accomplishment
Heidi is right--except that "very good" is almost an understatement. I've never been a great fan of Peggy Noonan, but when you're right, you're right--and here she is absolutely on point.
Heidi Kitrosser@heidikitrosser.bsky.social · 2w agoIt's a very good piece.
The apotheosis of this event will be a mass crash in the tight turn around the National Archives which will lead to a raging fire that will incinerate our sacred documents, bringing the semiquincentennial to a singeing conclusion. (Trace the map of the course in the article.)
See Where Indy Cars Will Race Around Washington, D.C. (Gift Article)
Explore the 1.7-mile course that Indy drivers will compete on Aug. 22 and 23.
nytimes.com
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/o...
Opinion | Trump’s Lust for Vengeance Is Turning Into a Farce (Gift Article)
Revenge shapes the president’s priorities, drives his actions and structures the decisions of his government.
nytimes.com
Reductio ad absurdum: One could not possibly understand the origins of the American Revolution without tracing it back to a Lockean theory of resistance pivoting on the idea of the appeal to heaven linked to the story of Yiftach in Judges 11:27.
Jonathan Ladd@jonathanmladd.com · 3w agoThis is correct. You can't understand American literature and history without some understanding of the Bible and of American religious history. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Additional proof for my proposition that PCA is the most exciting Cubs player ever.
Chicago Cubs@cubsbot.bsky.social · 3w agoPCA REACHES THE 30/30 MARK IN WALK-OFF FASHION.
I am not defending the practice, but doesn't that make the classification of this trove as "rare books" highly problematic? They came out of the stacks, no, and all were published since 1970.
Anne Trubek@atrubek.bsky.social · 3w agothis is great reporting. I do wish it emphasized more that *all* books had ISBNs, meaning *none* were published before 1970.
As a serious problem of constitutional design or correction, this cartoon is a wonderful prompt, especially when the justices conjure up novel doctrines from who knows what source to justify unsettling established norms and expectations.
conifergirl.bsky.social@conifergirl.bsky.social · 3w ago
Must-read piece from @adambonica.bsky.social on how Democratic committees and consultants built a fundraising machine that runs on a captive pool of elderly donors. Bonica discusses that and more in this piece a bunch of lawyers for these committees didn’t want you to read. Incredible work, Adam!
Hook and Squeeze
How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.
data4democracy.substack.com
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. But I speak only metaphorically, not out of any distaste for our canine friends. Plus the Cubs have helped to inflict the Dodgers' just rewards.
Ryan Enos@ryanenos.bsky.social · 4w agoUpdate: the Dodgers have lost 7 straight games and are 4-9 (.307) since visiting the White House.
As a Cubs fan who goes back to the Jackson-Miksis-Serena-Fondy-Kiner-Baumholtz-Sauer-McCulloch-Rush-Minner years and who recalls when Ernie came up in 1953 (and I attended his induction at Cooperstown): PCA this year has to be the single most exciting Cubs player, ever.
Chicago Cubs@cubsbot.bsky.social · 4w agoPETE CROW-ARMSTRONG. (say it back)
The book won the 2025 Order of the Coif Book Award from the Association of American Law Schools. orderofthecoif.org/book-award
Having contributed to this Forum, there are many great things one can say about it. One of the most important is that it enables readers to view the deepening crisis of 1775 from a genuinely Anglo-American perspective, illuminating the calculations and miscalculations on both sides of the Atlantic.
Jonathan Gienapp@jgienapp.bsky.social · last mo.The William and Mary Quarterly forum on the recently discovered John Dickinson documents, revealing his previously unknown secret attempt to prevent the American Revolution, is now available online! The WMQ has generously made the issue open access for the next month. muse.jhu.edu/issue/57168
Both Chief Justice Roberts' majority opinion and Justice Jackson's concurrence drew heavily on arguments and sources that historians @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social presented to the Court in an amicus brief. www.brennancenter.org/media/15301/...
The issue is out! Once it’s available online (it’ll be open access for thirty days!), I’ll post about the forum on the Dickinson documents discovery that I was so excited to help organize.
Gautham Rao (pronounced: Knicks in 5)@gauthamrao.bsky.social · last mo.An incredible forum in the latest William and Mary Quarterly, spearheaded by Jane E. Calvert and @jgienapp.bsky.social. The contingency of the revolutionary moment can’t be clearer.
